French Open Recap

Confronted by Nadia Petrova, who can dare say Russian women are not the most beautiful in the world? And how about their fashion sense?!

Well, it wasn’t pretty. No, it surely was not.

Last year’s French Open finalist Dinara Safina of Russia was ousted in her very first match at this year’s tournament, ousted by a player who became the second-oldest in the tournament’s modern history to win as much as a single match.

Ouch.

Then there was the woman who defeated Safina to take the title last year, Svetlana Kuznetsova. She was ousted in her third match of the French Open by a player not seeded in the top 25.

Ouch, ouch.

So, just for starters, neither of the two Russians who contested last year’s final, widely seen as one of the most pathetic and unwatchable in the history of grand slam finals, managed to get as far as the fourth round this year.

Ouch, ouch, ouch. But there was more, oh, so very much more carnage to report.

Kuznetsova and Safina have turned in such pathetic performance since last year’s French Open that neither one of them came into the draw as Russia’s top seed. Yet, wretched as they are, they were still good enough to be two of Russia’s three top-ten seeds, so by the time the fourth round rolled in only one of Russia’s top-ten contingent had a chance to be there, namely the country’s number one seed Elena Dementieva, number five overall. The “demented one” might have been canon fodder too but she was lucky enough to draw an unseeded Canadian barely ranked in the world’s top 50, and so she squeaked into the fourth round in tough three-set nail-biter.

If there was any “good news” for Russia in the first three rounds of the tournament, it was that the #30 seed Maria Kirilenko was the one to oust Kuznetsova. But this is hardly the kind of news Russian fans want to crow about. That is unless Kirilenko goes on to win the tournament. Which, you may not be shocked to learn, she didn’t.

In addition to Kirilenko and its trio of top-tenners, Russia had Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova, Vera Zvonareva, Alisa Kleybanova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the 32-player French Open draw, in other words a total of nine players and nearly a third of the total.

But Zvonareva was ousted by an unseeded rival in her second match, and Kleybanova and Pavlyuchenkova both went out meekly in the third round. Russia’s most famous player, Maria Sharapova, met a resurgent Justine Henin in her own third-round match and was booted out of the tournament in three sets by her much lower-seeded opponent. Henin promptly lost the next match she played.

In other words, a shocking two thirds of Russia’s seeded contingent, including two of its top three players, were slaughtered before even reaching the fourth round of the tournament. By that early juncture, only three of Russia’s nine seeds (Dementieva, Petrova and Kirlienko), just one third of the total, had the chance to to make the quarter finals.

Dementieva made it. And why? Because Russia’s #1 seed was the only seeded player in group of sixteen players in the fourth round to face an unseeded opponent!

Kirilenko faced a higher seeded non-Russian in her fourth-round match, and predictably lost in easy straight sets.

So it fell to the likes of Nadia Petrova to record Russia’s lone victory of substance against a foreign player in the entire tournament. She faced #2 seed Venus Williams and dominated the much higher-seeded American in easy straight sets. Look a bit beneath the surface, though, and you immediately appreciate what a hollow victory that was. Unlike Kuznetsova and Safina, Venus is no clay court specialist, and had not made itpast the third round of the tournament since 2006 and in 13 tries has made it as far as the semi-finals only once. Beating Venus Williams, one of the greatest grass-court players in the modern history of the sport, on the red clay of Paris is really not that hard. Still, compared to the performance of her countrywomen, Petrova was a superstar.

As luck would have it, though, Petrova and Dementieva were drawn to meet in the quarter finals, meaning that because of the woeful play of their compatriots no more than one Russian woman could appear in the semi-finals. Ask any tennis fan what the think about the prospect of paying big bucks to watch this Russian pair slug it out on clay and you’ll quickly learn why we say that the Russians are seriously undermining the fan base of the sport. The Russian duo played a “three-set match” in name only, as the ridiculous Petrova surrendered every single game of the third set to Dementieva in yet another one of her absurd mental breakdowns on the court.

So it was left to Russia’s “top seed,” referred to as “the demented one” by her fellow players because of her deranged manner of play and her inability to serve (breaking down in tears at one press conference, Dementieva wailed plaintively “I don’t know how to serve”), to defend Russia’s honor in the semi-finals against a journeywoman opponent not ranked in the world’s top 15 players.

Needless to say, she failed to do so, losing the first set and then retiring from the match claiming injury — a perfectly fitting end to an utterly disgraceful performance by the Russian contingent, yet another in a long string of humiliating disasters documented here on this blog. Handed match after easy match on her fraudulent way to the finals, when actually put to the test “the Demented One” simply collapsed. Still, compared to the rest fo the ridiculous Russian contingent in Paris, Dementieva shown like the sun.

32 responses to “French Open Recap”

I wasn’t a follower of this blog in 2006, but I went back through the archives, and I couldn’t find the article where you mocked Venus Williams (seeded 10th) when she got smashed out of the Australian Open by 18-year-old unseeded Bulgarian Tsetana Pironkova, appearing in her first Grand Slam tournament and ranked 94th.

Or in 2005, when World number 1 tennis champion Serena Willams (seeded 4th) had her ass handed to her by Jill Craybas, ranked 83rd. I’d have thought that one worth an editorial; if for no reason, for Williams’ typically generous sportsmanship, reflected in her post-match commentary – “I shouldn’t have lost this match. I didn’t play a good enough match. She didn’t have to do anything exceptionally well. She just pretty much had to show up”. Spoken like a true champion, Number One.

In fact, it sounds quite a bit like her analysis after losing to Serbian Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals of the Italian Open. Top-ranked Serena Williams lost to a seventh-ranked player, and commented (predictably), “I wasn’t playing the points right. I feel like I should have won, could have won”. It’s worth pointing out here that seventh-ranked Jankovic beat both Williams sisters in the same tournament in two days.

But even more interesting than the story was the comments appended to it; “It is not hard to beat the Willams sisters these days. Serena is on her way down the list”. “Seems no biggie for people to defeat the Williams sisters these days. I just wish for once Serena could accept defeat and not make excuses!”

Hey, Kate4 – that’s the American way. When you win, thump your chest and yell, “Boo YAH!!! In your FACE!!!” When someone else wins, mock it as a victory unearned, suggest they must have cheated, or invent some ailment or force of nature that made you lose, so that if things were fair you would have won.

I agree with you that Nadia Petrova is not particularly attractive, and certainly not representative of Russian women as a group. Although – in my personal opinion – American women are nowhere near in the same class, it would be fair to say the Williams sisters (who look like a couple of the Budweiser Clydesdales in tennis skirts) are not necessarily reflective of American femininity either.

It’s only a matter of time before a Russian takes the Grand Slam, and I predict it won’t be long. You can count on hearing about it, in the same spirit you review women’s tennis.

LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

You are an illiterate goat.

THIS POST points out Venus’s weakness.

THIS BLOG is not about America.

Venus HOLDS MORE GRAND SLAM TITLES BY HERSELF THAN ALL RUSSIAN WOMEN WHO HAVE EVER PLAYED THE GAME COMBINED.

Can’t you think AT LEAST A LITTLE before you babble your defensive childish nonsense? Don’t you realize how foolish you make Russia look for having only the likes of you for her her defenders?

When Pironkova slaughtered Williams, they weren’t playing on a clay court, and Pironkova was barely in the top 100.

LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

What your feeble excuse for a brain fails to understand is:

(a) NOBODY IS SAYING AMERICANS ARE DOMINATING TENNIS. THEY (AND YOU!) ARE SAYING RUSSIANS DOMINATE IT. THEY DON’T. WE EXPOSE THAT FACT.

(b) WILLIAMS HAS MORE GRAND SLAM TITLES THAN ALL RUSSIANS WHO HAVE EVER PLAYED THE GAME COMBINED. RUSSIA HAS NEVER ONCE PRODUCED A PLAYER WORTHY OF COMPARISON TO THE GREAT AMERICANS LIKE THE WILLIAMS SISTERS OR CHRIS EVERT. RUSSIA’S MOST SUCCESSFUL PLAYER, MARIA SHARAPOVA, LIVES IN THE USA AND LEARNED HER GAME THERE.

(c) NOBODY WANTS TO WATCH RUSSIANS PLAY TENNIS. THEY ARE BORING, ONE-DIMENSIONAL LOSERS WHO ARE TAINTING THE GAME.

Please stop dishonestly mischaracterizing the content of our posts. If you don’t, we’ll ban you. That post is ABOUT ONE TOURNAMENT, you hopeless gorilla, and we were teasing and provoking Russia because of its repeated claim to be dominant. Our point was that EVEN THOUGH RUSSIAN HAD A NUMBER OF HIGHLY RANKED PLAYERS, THEY ALWAYS FAILED TO WIN BIG TOURNAMENTS AGAINST FOREIGN COMPETITION.

We will not spend our time repeating the contents of posts you won’t read in good faith. The next time you do this, you’re baned. Got it, creep? No more warnings.

Serena Williams, who lost both her temper and her US Open semi-final against Kim Clijsters on Saturday, was last night fined $10,500 (£6,300) and faced with the possibility of suspension for her profanity-laced tirade against a lineswoman who called a foot fault against her.

“I swear to God I’ll f*cking take the ball and shove it down your f*cking throat.”

Even John McEnroe, who is no stranger to controversy, or indeed bad language, suggesting yesterday that Williams should be suspended. However, taking such a step against the most high-profile figure in the women’s game would require a boldness, not to mention a bravery, that most observers believe is beyond the tennis authorities.

Afterwards, she was unrepentant: “An apology from me?….”

Williams, who had been outplayed for most of the match… she had started as a clear favourite but after losing the first set 6-4, the American’s exasperation was obvious as she threw her racket at the court

VOR, you chowderheaded chimpanzee. If you followed women’s tennis with half the dedication you pretend, you know this is nothing new for Serena. Not only do the Williams sisters look like cross-dressing Offensive Tackles, they talk like truck drivers.

As Williams explained to reporters after the match: “I used to have a real temper – and I’ve gotten a lot better. I know you don’t believe me, I used to be worse.”

But Williams’ effervescent and bubbly on-court personality didn’t just surface overnight; this is just another repetition in a cascading pattern. There was a similar incident earlier that year, against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, in which ever-classy Serena threatened to “make her pay in the locker room”. But that was far from the most interesting tidbit – no, that was the last sentence of the article. “I would have denied it had the mic not been on.”

Petrova’s 6-4, 6-3 victory could hardly be presented as a great surprise, since she has twice been to the semi-finals in Paris, and she knows her way around a clay court.

LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

You’re probably not aware, because you are an ignorant, illiterate BUFFOON, that Venus is a highly compensated and successful FASHION DESIGNER. Petrova, to say the least, isn’t.

You ignore the statement, because you are A RUDE ILLITERATE APE, which is clearly set forth in this post, that Venus has never been any good on clay. Petrova herself was humiliated in her next match, not winning a single game in the decisive third set.

It’s sad that you are so proud of a victory over an American. Is that really your standard, not actually winning the tournament? Petrova has never won a grand slam title or even been competive in a final seeking one. She’s boring, she’s awful, she’s a pathetic joke of a tennis player. Venus is utterly compelling and historically great. If the game had to depend on the likes of Petrova, it would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Venus and Nadia have four prior matches, all off the clay, and Nadia lost every one of them, taking only one set in total.

You’re missing the point. If you must choose a sport and make it reflective of national greatness – as silly a concept as that is – you could hardly have chosen a worse one for the United States than women’s tennis. Yes, Serena and Venus Williams currently sit at number one and two in the world; but how much longer can that last? It’s generally acknowledged they’ve already passed their peak of play, and there’s nowhere to go but down. When that happens, where’s the fresh American star that will step into their shoes? Not in the top 10: but there are 3 Russians. Not in the top 20 : but there are 5 Russians. Not even in the top 30: but there are 9 Russians. In fact, the next American rising star in women’s tennis currently sits at number 37.

In 20 years Russian women have gone from not even appearing in the top 100, and from when women tennis players from Russia were a rarity, to unquestioned dominance of the sport.

They have done so in spite of lacking the pampering and adulation American female players get. When Venus and Serena fall, and I think it’s clear that’s not far away, American dominance of women’s tennis is over.

It’s you who is missing the point, because you are an ILLITERATE GORILLA who does not even try to read our blog in good faith.

We write about tennis to EXPLODE THE MYTH that Russia is good, not to show that America is great. Your suggestion that Russia has “unquestioned dominance of the sport” is fully deranged, disconnected from the facts and precisely why we write these posts.

You feel that Russia dominates when #1 and #2 are Americans? When EVERY SINGLE RUSSIAN crashed and burned in Paris? When EVERY SINGLE TENNIS FAN agrees that Russians are utterly boring and indeed unwatchable?

You feel it means nothing that BOTH Safina AND Kuznetsova were booted out of this tournament before the fourth round?

Dude, your head needs serious, serious work. You sound exactly like what you are: A brain-dead neo-Soviet troll.

Well, good luck with that myth-exploding thing. Let me know how it turns out, will you? I don’t mean to cast a pall of negativity over what’s obviously a very sincere effort, but the Washington Post is a fairly prominent newspaper, and I’d hazard a guess that its readership exceeds yours. Still, you could wear a sandwich board, I guess.

Let’s look at it from another perspective. I’ve mentioned this analogy before, but you deleted it, so it’s worth repeating. Formula One auto racing – the Grand Prix. Michael Schumacher is the unchallenged champion, with 91 wins, seven world championships, and is “statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen”, according to the Formula One website.

Would you say Germany dominates the sport of Formula One auto racing? Hardly. Schumacher is the only German ever to have won the Formula One championship, and there are no other German drivers in the top 10. Who does dominate the sport? With nearly half of the top 10 drivers, all of whom have won a world championship, unquestionably the United Kingdom. There’s a big difference between being the world champion, and dominating the sport nationally.

Cheer up, love. There are still plenty of events in which the United States dominates nationally. The Miss America beauty pageant, for instance: no Russian has ever even cracked the top 20 in that. And hey, what about NASCAR? Americans win every time.

Because Russians, because of their ridiculous “national pride” loudly scream from every roof top that they are rising from “their knees” and are the best country in the world in every respect.

Now, being a third world country, a sort of Albania or Bangladesh (only a much better armed one) makes proving it a very difficult task, doesn’t it? So, athletics and sports are used to support that point, exactly the same thing that the U.S.S.R. and East Germany used to do.

Hence, “our tennis is the best that has even been seen.” Hence, the Sochi Olympics. Hence, a national tragedy because they only had a few medals in Vancouver (what normal country would give that “tragedy” more than 1 minute of attention?). Etc., etc.

Aggressive nasty Russian nationalism has replaced communism as the official ideology. And sports, including tennis, are just some means of arousing the masses. That’s why this is relevant

Ahhh…. I see. So the reason you followers go along with the ridiculous charade that having the world champion in women’s tennis is evidence of national greatness is…..aggressive nasty Russian nationalism.

If it’s not too much trouble, could you show me an example of how women’s tennis is “arousing the masses” in Russia? I’m interested, because the reason most of the players leave the country to train is that they get almost no support from the state, usually having to rely on their parents to help them realize their ambitions.

That certainly doesn’t sound like a country amped-up on women’s tennis.

“And yet, the tennis achievements, whatever they are, are marketed as a proof.”

By whom? The biggest marketer of Russian women’s tennis – in a negative sense – is this blog. Nobody else gives a rip. While constantly yammering that “EVERY SINGLE TENNIS FAN agrees that Russians are utterly boring and indeed unwatchable”, LR can’t talk enough about them. She obviously follows their every move.

“Hence, a national tragedy because they only had a few medals in Vancouver (what normal country would give that “tragedy” more than 1 minute of attention?)”

Ha, ha!! RV, you crack me up. Do a quick search of this blog, for seemingly endless rehashing of Russia’s performance in the Vancouver Olympics. Abnormal? You said it. Maybe you should have been a psychiatrist.

RV wrote: “Because Russians, because of their ridiculous “national pride” loudly scream from every roof top that they are rising from “their knees” and are the best country in the world in every respect.

“The best country in the world in every respect”? You keep on repeating this idiotic paranoid mantra again and again, while steadfastly refusing to provide even a shred of evidence.

Why don’t you provide proof with citations that the majority of modern Russians think their country is “the best country in the world in every respect”?

Or if you fail, at least give me some quotes from individual respectable Russian modern officials (no clowns like Zhirinovsky please) who clam that Russia is “the best country in the world in every respect.

2. If you make a controversial factual statement, including any claim that any statement of fact in one of our posts is false or misleading, you must back it up with a link to source material. If you don’t, your comment may be deleted. Alternatively, we may aim a great deal of personal abuse at you as retribution and delete any response you might make.

I am too lazy to spend my time looking, but there were a number of statements like this, including on this blog. Certainly, Russians do come across as if they held such a view (i.e., being #1). If I misunderstood, fine, you are correct then.

In my estimation, Russia is about #60 or so in the world, and one on the bottom of the list in Europe, overall, considering all the criteria, such as economic development, life expectancy, crime, corruption, education, medical services, science, arts, etc. If the Russophiles agree with this estimation, then I have no problems taking what I said back.

But I think their ridiculous “pride” would not let them to be OK with that.

RV wrote: “I am too lazy to spend my time looking, but there were a number of statements like this, including on this blog. ”

This blog, like most of the internet, contains myriads of stupidest posts by the most mentally deprived and depraved pathetic creatures with severe mental retardation. Their claims, both pro-Russian and anti-Russian, are stunning in their stupidity.

When you kept on repeating your paranoid beliefs that Russians believe that Russia is “the best country in the world in every respect”, you were talking about Russians as a whole, or at least about Russian leaders like Putin and Medvedev.

But now you have clarified to me that you base your sweeping political and philosophical judgments on blog comments from a few mental retards.

Imagine what would happen if I made my judgment of Australians on the writings of Bohdan, the retard who posts total jibberish here.

Why are you so preoccupied with arguing with mental retards, RV? You should teach yourself enough confidence to start arguing with intelligent people.

Why am I so preoccupied with arguing with mental retards? Well, who else is there on the Russophile side?

But OK, you are making a valid point. Next time I see something along these lines coming from more prominent Russians, I’ll let you know. Fair enough? I promised something like that to Mr. Ouch and then delivered. Mr. Ouch hasn’t been heard from ever since

Well, a lot of intelligent people have posted a post or two to this blog and disappeared out of boredom.

Among the regulars here, there are few non-retards on either side. On the russophile regulars side, the names of FSB, Dmitry (did he get blocked by LR recently?), Adomanis and myself (sorry) pop to my head as non-retards. On the russophobe side: you, A., and Felix come to mind… Not many non-retards on either side… Каков поп, таков и приход.

As I recall, Mr. Ouch was not the brightest bulb in the garland.

“Mr. Ouch hasn’t been heard from ever since”

Most likely, like all russophiles, he got at some point banned/blocked by this blog operator’s.

I know it hurts to hate on Russian girls, the best looking birds on the planet Earth.

comment;
First of all, welcome Mr. Leos Tomicek, yet another invented name by that hord of stupid, senile and hungry kgb idiots. We should make a list of names – combinations are endless polish/georgian, armenian, english czech, russians, uzbek, french, etc., concocted by those idiotic russians – I supose those lucky ex-kgb proletarians get extra five ruble = 10 US cents and a bottle of contaminated samogon. And NO camarade Leos Tomicek, russian women aren’t the most beautiful ones, they are the easiest one though. In the USA the russian women are considered deseased hookers anyway…..

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